Schrödinger's cat in popular culture
Schrödinger's cat is a seemingly paradoxical thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger that attempts to illustrate the incompleteness of the theory of quantum mechanics when going from subatomic to macroscopic systems. In 1935, Schrödinger published an essay describing the conceptual problems in quantum mechanics. A brief paragraph in this essay described the cat paradox: :One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The Psi function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. Introduction It was not long before science-fiction writers picked up this evocative concept, often using it in a humorous vein. Several have taken the thought experiment a step further, pointing out or extra complications which might arise should the experiment actually be performed. For example, in his novel American Gods, Neil Gaiman has a character observe, "if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead." Likewise, Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies adds the issue of a third possible state, in the case of Greebo, "Bloody Furious". Douglas Adams describes an attempt to enact the experiment in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. By using clairvoyance to see inside the box, it was found that the cat was neither alive nor dead, but missing, and Dirk's services were employed in order to recover it. On a somewhat more serious level, Ian Stewart's novel Flatterland (a sequel to Flatland) attempts to explain many concepts in modern mathematics and physics through the device of having a young female Flatlander explore other parts of the "Mathiverse". Schrödinger's Cat is just one of the many strange Mathiverse denizens she and her guide meet; the cat is still uncertain whether it is alive or dead, long after it left the box. Her guide, the Space Hopper, reassures the Cat with a modern view of quantum decoherence. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a story entitled "Schrödinger's Cat" in 1974 (reprinted in The Compass Rose, published in 1982), which also deals with decoherence. Greg Egan's novel Quarantine, billed as "a story of quantum catastrophe", features an alternative solution to the paradox: in Egan's version of quantum mechanics, the wave function does not collapse naturally. Only certain living things — human beings among them — collapse the wave function of things they observe. Humans are therefore highly dangerous to other lifeforms which require the full diversity of uncollapsed wavefunctions in order to survive. As Egan notes, Schrödinger's hypothetical cat is one of the most familiar illustrations of quantum-mechanical oddities. In Quarantine, a physicist asks the narrator, an ex-cop and private investigator, if he has ever heard of "the quantum measurement problem". The narrator is naturally confused, but when asked if he's heard of Schrödinger's Cat, he replies, "Of course." Fiction writers have confined other animals besides cats in such contraptions. Dan Simmons' novel Endymion begins with hero Raul Endymion trapped in a Schrödinger-style box. In the fortieth-anniversary Doctor Who audio drama "Zagreus" (2003), the Doctor is locked in a lead-lined box also containing cyanide in an effort to explain his situation of being neither dead nor alive. Afterwards, the Doctor does mention that he had met Schrödinger's Cat. In addition, the name "Schrödinger" has itself become an inside joke, often employed to elicit a chuckle from those familiar with physics. In an episode of the 1940s radio drama "Maddox's Bedtime Stories for Kid Geniuses" entitled "Little Eve and Gogo", the main character is a teenage female scientist named Kat Schrödinger. Cats named Schrödinger appear in the television series Sliders and Stargate SG-1, for example, as well as in Carol Hill's feminist science fiction classic "The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer". The animated series Futurama, several of whose production team had advanced degrees in science and math, includes many jokes of this sort; in the episode "A Clone of My Own", a brief shot reveals a nightclub called "Schrödinger's Kit-Kat Club" (also an allusion to Cabaret). Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls features a cat named Pixel, affectionately termed "Schrödinger's Cat" due to his ability to be wherever his favorite person is. Pixel's ability to walk through walls is due to the fact that he does not know that it is impossible. Other assorted examples Books and stories * The Schrödinger's Cat trilogy is the name commonly given to a trilogy of science fiction/conspiracy theory novels written by Robert Anton Wilson. It consists of The Universe Next Door, The Trick Top Hat and The Homing Pigeons. * In The Last Hero, another of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Death's surly assistant Albert tries to explain to Death the concept of "Quantum" with an object lesson similar to "Schrödinger's Cat". Death waves it off, saying, I DON'T HOLD WITH CRUELTY TO CATS (since, of course, Death speaks entirely in capital letters). * In The Coming of the Quantum Cats, by Frederik Pohl, a man meets his many corresponding selves as he travels into the multiverse. * In the manga Hellsing, there is a catboy named Schrödinger. He looks human, save for the furry ears perched on his head. This being claims to be everywhere and nowhere at once, and as such, has the ability to teleport and to survive contact-range gunshots through the skull. * Steve Martin's 1998 book Pure Drivel includes a piece entitled "Schrödinger's Cat", which presents a summary of the theory, followed by several fictitious, nonsensical theories, including "Wittgenstein's Banana", "Apollo's Non-Apple Non-Strudel", and "Chef Boyardee's Bungee Cord" (which begins, "A bungee cord is hooked at one end to a neutrino, while the other end is hooked to a vibraphone...") * Saturday by Ian McEwan refers to Schrödinger's Cat. * Schrödinger's Cat is discussed in "The Summer of Love" by Lisa Mason. * A two-headed cat, one head being conscious the other sleeping or presumably dead, appears in one of Christopher Stasheff's series of "Her Majesties Wizard" novels, along with other thought experiment beings, the most notable being Maxwell's Demon. * George Alec Effinger's novelette, "Schrödinger's Kitten" (1988), received both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. Schrödinger's Kitten was published in book form in 1992. * In "Hopdinger's Cat", a short story by the Roaming Janitors, Colin demonstrates that Schrödinger's cat itself is the problem with the experiment, since it, of course, knows whether it is alive or dead. (Contrast the cat in Stewart's Flatterland, which lacks even this information.) * Schrödinger's cat also appears in Nano by John Robert Marlow, which includes the theoretical experiment as well as a cat that is quite real. * Greg Bear's short Story Schrodinger's Plague (appearing in the collection Tangents) deals with a group of scientists who are unwuttingly subjected to a similar experiment in which they both are and are not infected with a disease that will wipe out humanity: In this case "opening the chamber" (discovering for certain that they are infected or even simply believing they are infected) may mean dooming humanity. * The manga Ah! My Goddess features a "Schrödinger's Whale". This whale has the ability to travel through space, though it cannot stay at the same space for more than three days, as that would make its existence certain. This rule makes it difficult for such whales to find companions and mates. * In the DC Comics series Animal Man, there was a storyline in which Animal Man found himself displaced in time. To explain his situation to his friend, Nowhere Man, he proposed "Schrödinger's Pizza" — one with peppers, and one without. * The Transformer Ravage's Binaltech bio mentions that his time-displaced black box was code-named "Schrödinger's Box" this is an apt name as Ravage is modeled after a Jaguar, and in his Binaltech form he is neither live nor dead (he has the memories of the future version of Ravage who traveled back in time and died thanks to the before mentioned black box, as well as the Spark (life-force) of the present version of Ravage). *Jeanette Winterson recently included Schrödinger's Cat as "Dinger", an incidental character in her latest (children's) book, Tanglewreck (2005). *In the Manga HAL(Hyper Academic Laborotory), a Schrödinger's cat appeared as a cat inside the box where everytime you open it, it is shifted from dead to alive or vice versa depending on the life or death last time the box was opened. The characters happen to have forgotten to close the box after opening the box when it is dead and it became rotten. The box is then closed and sealed forever. * Adam Felber's novel Schodinger's Ball is a comic exploration of the theory. * Ursula K. Le Guin 's sci-fi short story "Schrödinger's Cat" from The Compass Rose (1982) imagines the third option where the cat simply isn't there when the box is opened Audiovisual media * In the episode of NUMB3RS entitled "Identity Crisis", Charlie re-phrases Schrödinger's Cat to illustrate the point that the tests used to disprove/prove a murder suspect's identity are built on a false premise. * In the anime Master of Mosquiton, there is a discussion between Schrödinger and the vampire Saint-Germain, wherein Germain claims he can control fate. To prove this, Germain predicts the cast of a die. Just as the die is about to land as predicted, Schrödinger's pet cat bats the die so that it lands on a different number. * Schrödinger's cat is referenced in the movie John Carpenter's Prince Of Darkness. * A Dutch short movie from 1990 is called Schrödingers kat. A teacher explains the theory to his class. At the same time a man called Schrödinger (played by Bruno Ganz) dies of a heart attack in his apartment, while neighbours assume he is still alive and send him Christmas cards. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210966/ * A track on the Tears for Fears album Saturnine Martial & Lunatic (1996) is called "Schrödinger's Cat". * The TV series Stargate SG-1 had a cat named "Schrödinger" who appeared in two episodes (Enigma and Pretense). * In the pilot episode of Sliders, Quinn has a pet cat named Schrödinger. Games * In the computer game NetHack, monsters known as quantum mechanics may carry a chest containing Schrödinger's Cat. When opened, there is a 50% chance of finding it dead and a 50% chance of it jumping out alive. * In both Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga games, Schrödinger is the name of a cat that always seems to be at the right place at the right time. * In Wild ARMs 3, the Schrödinger family owns a talking flying cat named Shady. A scene shows Shady retrieving a gem only to trigger an invisible barrier around him. While Maya Schrödinger explains about Shady's claustrophobia, Shady screams "Whaaaaaaaaaaaah! No poison gas, please!" *In the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, the PvP betting game known as "the Money Making Game" has one message that uses Schrödinger's cat as a contest. The betting player guesses whether the cat is dead or alive when the box is opened. * In the roleplaying game supplement GURPS Infinite Worlds, Schrödinger's Cat is used to illustrate the Many-worlds interpretation. Infinite Worlds, as the name suggests, is a science-fiction setting where player-controlled characters can physically travel to the alternate realities proposed by many-worlds theory through the science of Parachronics. Webcomics * A cat named Schrödinger appears as a semi-recurring character in Checkerboard Nightmare, a webcomic by Kristofer Straub. Schrödinger can see all possible states of existence at once, and as a result is very much insane, as detailed in his first appearance. * The webcomic Two Lumps has an episode about Schrödinger's cat. "They're talking about schreddin' cats and puttin' 'em in a box!!!" *Stephen Notley's Bob the Angry Flower cartoon strip "Schrödinger's Fridge" stated that it could not be determined if beer was in the fridge or not. Although Bob whipped open the fridge door and was observing his "frickin' head off" the beers would not actualize. Bob quickly cursed Quantum Physics. * A "Schrödinger Box" (which no one is allowed to open) is used in Agnostica celebrations in the comic strip Nukees. * A "Schrödinger's Helicopter" appears in the comic http://drmcninja.com/index.html The Adventures of Doctor McNinja by Chris Hastings. Appearance in other media > tag in HTML.]] * Curiosity may have killed the cat, Schrödinger only killed half of it. * In 1982 Cecil Adams, in his column The Straight Dope, wrote a concise and humorous description of the thought experiment, and Einstein's refutation of same, in the form of an epic poem. "The story of Schroedinger's cat (an epic poem)" http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_122.html * The term "Schrödinger's Terrorist" has been used to semi-humorously label terrorists whose status as living or dead is unknown and/or subject to contradictory rumors such as Osama bin Laden. * A "Schrödinger's Date" is a meeting between two people that may or may not be a date, and whose status cannot be determined. Only the odds of it being one or the other can be estimated. * There's also the mock headline "Schrödinger's cat found half-alive: quantum theory a mistake!" * From the syndicated comic strip, "Brewster Rockit": "Schrödinger's cat-litter box. If you don't observe it, you won't have to change it." * Tears for Fears Track on their Saturnine Martial & Lunatic Album is called Schrödinger's cat. * The online retailer ThinkGeek sells a t-shirt that has the words "Schrödinger's cat is dead" on the front and "Schrödinger's Cat is not dead" on the back. * Cartoon: You see a picture of a refrigerator with a post-it-note saying "I'm out of town for a few days. Please be so nice and feed my cat. Thanks. Schrödinger". * The theory of Schrödinger's cat has been extended in colloquial humour. The contents of the box are undetermined to such an extent that the cat is neither alive nor dead nor definitely a cat. It could in fact be a badger. * Mrs. Schrödinger is asking her husband: "Erwin, what were you doing with the cat all day? It's half-dead!" * The average cat has nine lives. Shrödinger's cats only had 4.5. * The Userfriendly Comic Strip which originally suggested the only valid use of a blink tag.http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030427 Reference * E. Schrödinger, Die gegenwartige Situation in der Quantenmechanik, Naturwissenschaftern. 23: pp. 807-812; 823-823, 844-849. (1935). English translation: John D. Trimmer, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124, pp. 323-38 (1980), reprinted in Quantum Theory and Measurement, p. 152 (1983). External links * Poem by Cecil Adams * Stephen Notley's Bob the Angry Flower: Schrödinger's Fridge * "The Adventures of Schrodinger the Cat" comic strip * The Interactive Schrödinger's Cat Category:In popular culture Category:Physical paradoxes Category:Physics in fiction Category:Science fiction themes Category:Thought experiments Category:Fictional cats